In a conventional factory (or manufacturing) environment, a pool of workers, with skills matched to assigned tasks, is typically needed to run an assembly line. The assembly line needs all the workers present to begin. It is extremely inconvenient and costly when workers fail to arrive promptly (or at all) and available skills do not match the tasks. Conventional solutions to filling up a particular assembly line with the number of workers needed use various ad-hoc mechanisms that can be inefficient when viewed in the context of the entire work force.
It would be desirable to implement a method for optimizing a workforce that minimizes inefficiencies when assigning particular workers to a particular task on an assembly line.